Carmelo Anthony Speaks On OKC Thunder Tenure & Says Buyouts Are “The New Norm” In The League

"If something doesn't work, go ahead and get a buyout or go ahead and get traded."

Let’s face it— to quote Stephen A. Smith we all felt hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray by Hoodie Melo last year. Carmelo Anthony had us thinking he was going to have one hell of a season when he joined Russell Westbrook and Paul George in Oklahoma City. Instead, we saw a washed version of the bully on the block, and he finally opens up about his lackluster one year tenure as a member of the Thunder and coming to grips with being bought out of his contract.

Melo and Thunder have officially parted ways thanks to a three-team deal that shipped him to the Atlanta Hawks and sent PG Dennis Schroeder to OKC. Anthony has since been bought out by the Hawks, and the internet has since jokingly crowned him the new finesse god walking away with a smooth $27.9 million for doing absolutely nothing.

Speaking with ESPN.com, Jemele Hill reports the Melo has come to grips with his hefty buyout and stated: “To get bought out, to get waived, you were looked at like, you’re done. Now, it’s just almost like the norm. If something doesn’t work, go ahead and get a buyout or go ahead and get traded. That’s the new norm in our society in basketball. I had to get over that.”

When you walk away with as much as he did that is definitely easy to say. He also spoke on his horrible season with the Thunder where he averaged a career-low 16.2 ppg as well. Anthony points out “it wasn’t a good fit,” and “everything was just so rushed.”

“At the end of the day, it wasn’t a good fit. I think last year—and I haven’t talked about this before—everything was just so rushed, going to the team for media day and the day before training camp. Them guys already had something in place, and then I come along in the 25th hour like, ‘Oh s–t, Melo just come on and join us. Like, you can figure it out since you’ve been around the game for a long time.’ That’s why it was so inconsistent. At times, I had to figure it out on my own rather than somebody over there or people over there helping me,” he explained.

Anthony is looking to rebound this season as a member of the Houston Rockets where he is expected to sign a one year deal for the league’s veteran minimum salary of $2.4 million Marc Stein of the New York Times reports. We hope this is the fit Melo is looking for because we just want to see Hoodie Melo on the court this year.